Well you're going to die. There's a maniac that can't be reasoned with about to blow your guts out your back. You can either take it like a champ and give up or fight tooth and nail to overpower your attacker. You have better odds of living that way. Even if you lose you gave it a shot and that's something.

Woody Harrelson was so bloody convincing in this scene. Simply scary. "If the road you followed brought you to this" is one of most incredible lines written for a film. Saw this great film on the first day of it's release and when it ended with the bad guy going thru the green light and getting hit, I had to laugh. He was following the law!!!!!!!!!! Then Tommy Lee Jones talks about his dreams and the screen fades to black. Simply brilliant.

Anton hates Carson and is just trying to add insult to injury. Add humiliation before he kills him.
When he says if the rule you followed led you to this of what use was the rule. Thats another way of saying..... the rule you followed led you to sitting in a chair across from me about to blow your brains out with a shotgun. What was its purpose.

Security experts know you don't 'go to the room', your best chance is on the stairs where you have room to move, he may miss, and you have surprise. Your life is over anyway, you pick the spot to make your last stand and that spot has to be the best choice for that last stand. Not sitting in a chair.

It's a movie you stupid bitch. The staircase is there to serve the purpose of being an ominous setting for Carson to get caught. The footsteps, Chigur literally coming up behind him, the weariness Carson exhibits at just starting to relax (literally walking up to his room ie a place of safe harbour), the double shot of both of their faces etc. The action in any good movie is only there to service the plot. The scene is a set up for these two characters having this conversation. That's the point. Not the tactical mistakes the characters may or may not make.
The whole thing is that when you've let your guard down, when you're sloppy, when you're finally seeing a light at the end of the tunnel (Carson just located the money, he's relieved and potentially excited), there's Chigur. He is the Deus Ex Machina personification of absolute statistical evil. A representative of the insane malevolence of .00001$ of the human experience. If Carson doesn't make the mistake you highlight, none of this works. And, more importantly, we miss out on this RIDICULOUSLY STUPID GOOD scene, the kind of scene that makes this a perfect film, and the action that meatheads like you crave actually mean something. The mistake elevates the movie.
And also, just totally unrelated, to point out yet another way entirely in which you're stupid, in the 1970's, "security" as a profession was nowhere near where it is now. It was pretty much the wild west, there were just as many pretenders as there were effective people, and like none of the schools of thought on containment, security etc. were well-known. Those that did know kept them as trade secrets. You stupid bitch.

The fact is that sugar miscalculated when moss had the money at the Gage hotel. He also miscalculated by going to wax Mrs Moss in Odessa. Both miscalculations nearly cost his life, so he also followed a rule that nearly led him to his end.

What I didn't understand is why Carson would walk around unarmed and knowing the type of person he's after better than anyone? And then just walks right into his room with this psycho, with no attempt at retaliation against him.

Exactly....That’s why Chigurh illuminated that he should admit the situation that he was in because their would be more dignity in it...” He knew what Anton was but still felt arrogant enough in pursuing him and when Anton got the drop on him he still leaned on his arrogance in attempts to offer to take him to an ATM and believing that he knew where the money was and then Anton immediately responded “I know something better...” “I know where it’s going to be...”

Same thing in the final scene when the widow could have beat it out the house, instead, she sits on the bed to continue the conversation. I am sure there is some sort of message that most of his victims accepted their finality, Christopher Walker voice- “cause he’s scary,”

You may be on to something. If Carson knows Anton, then Carson would have tried to fight him before going into the room because no one usually survives any meeting with Anton. Also, the car wreck scene toward the end, no one else in the neighborhood comes out to see what's going on, even the guy who we're told is calling an ambulance. As Anton walks away, he's not even half a block down when we hear the sirens, certainly not enough time to get away unnoticed. See? If only the filmmakers had heard my semi-amateur movie-maker opinion before editing, it would've been so much more believable.

I think that they've obviously crossed paths before, but this was the day that Chigur decided that he's had it up to here with Carson Wells. But, what I've always wondered is, how the hell did Chigur get inside the hotel with that weapon apparently without anyone stopping him?